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Thursday, March 22, 2012

A Love/Hate Relationship

I am currently in a love/hate relationship.

With morning.

I'd like to tell you that I took this picture of a beautiful sunRISE off of Oahu.
But, let's be honest- it was a sunSET.

I hate getting up in the morning. I hate my alarm clock. I hate the back-up alarm set on my phone. I hate the rumbling of trucks driving by my windows that steal five minutes of my sleep. I am terrible at getting up in the morning, because I am a night owl. It does not matter how tired I am, I can always find one-more-thing-to-do before bed, which whittles away at my sleep until I become a walking zombie when the sun comes up.

Because (at least my weekdays) I have a flexible work schedule this year, and I know how my mornings go, I have intentionally scheduled things in the morning so that I don't waste my day. I go to the earliest Mass offered. I opt for earlier appointments when possible. I gave up my snooze button for Lent (epic fail there). I am trying...but I don't seem to be changing my attitude.

I mean, Scripture says, "weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." I should love the morning, greet the new day, rejoice in the new opportunities, right?

Right.

So one day this week, I found that I needed to be somewhere early. I decided to get up even earlier so that I could still get done the things that I needed to do before going on with the plan for the day. I was going to offer it up for Lent as a pittance towards my snooze-button-fail.

But it turns out that what I intended as a sacrifice turned out to be a great encouragement (funny how that works).

I enjoyed watching the sun rise (albeit through my windshield).
I savored the alone time singing to the radio before the rush of the day.
I loved hearing the ring of the church bells calling worshipers to a (very) early Mass.
I soaked in the quiet of the prayer.
I liked sitting down to breakfast. My coffee even tasted better.
I was satisfied to check things off the to-do list at a time of day that I am normally still in bed.
And I still had a whole day in front of me.

So, honestly, I find that I love morning. I can think of many special moments over the years that all happened only because I forced myself out of bed at an (by my definition) unreasonable hour.

Love or hate, all of the day is a gift from God, meant to savor and appreciate.

And I was glad to have a reminder that the morning is included in that.

"Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece." -Saint John Paul the Great

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